


Harmful Healing

by icewhisper



Series: Holiday Cheer & Tears [14]
Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV), The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Bad Things Happen Bingo, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-15
Updated: 2018-12-15
Packaged: 2019-09-18 12:25:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16994970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icewhisper/pseuds/icewhisper
Summary: Mick didn’t care. He couldn’t care, not when Barry’s daughter was running around Central years before she was supposed to be born. And she’d…She’d asked where Uncle Lenny was.





	Harmful Healing

“Do _something_.”

“We can’t,” Barry told him. “You time travel, Rory. You know there’s some stuff you can’t change.”

Cisco stiffened somewhere behind him, jaw clenched a little tighter. Mick didn’t care. He _couldn’t_ care, not when Barry’s daughter was running around Central years before she was supposed to be born. And she’d…

She’d asked where Uncle Lenny was.

“You do _something_ , Scarlet,” he snapped. “Ask your kid.”

Nora’s eyes went wide behind her father as the man turned to look at her. She raised her hands in defense. “I didn’t mean to… I mean… I don’t know _who_ did it,” she stammered, “but Uncle Lenny _is_ Uncle Lenny because he’s alive in my time, so…” She shrugged a little helplessly. “It’s complicated?”

“Complicated,” Barry repeated tiredly. “Uncle Lenny.”

“No one ever gave me the whole story and it’s not in the Flash Museum,” she explained.

“But he’s alive in your time,” Iris said, brows creased as she stared at her daughter.

Nora nodded. “All I know is that it had something to do with the Oculus.”

 Mick’s fingers curled into fists. Of course it did. It all came back to that fucking shithole.

\---

The Oculus blew and all he knew was pain.

Fire burning through his skin and into his bones, so hot that he thought he could feel the marrow boiling. Worse than the times Mick’s flames got a little too out of control. Worse than anything he’d ever felt.

Some part of him knew he shouldn’t be feeling it, that he should have died in the second the explosion came. He’d _heard_ it, the boom and the terrified screams before the silence.

He opened his mouth, but nothing came out and, somehow, it made the pain worse.

His body wouldn’t move, still trapped in the same position he’d been in when the Oculus went critical. His hand on the lever. His feet on a floor that should have been burned away. Everything should have been burned away. He didn’t _understand_.

Something whispered his name, as familiar as it was foreign, but it lit something in him. The Time Masters were dead, he told himself. He could let go.

A shock ran up his spine as he let go, blue darting over his hands, and he ran.

 

 

“-art! Stop!”

No. He couldn’t. If he stopped, something was going to catch up to him. He could feel it at the edge of his awareness, something dark and powerful that wanted him _back_. It was angry, seething at the idea that something had been stolen from it. He hadn’t stolen anything. He didn’t remember stealing anything. Sometimes, he picked pockets without realizing when he was anxious, but his pockets were empty.

He hadn’t stolen anything.

There was the crackle of something purple and yellow at the edge of his vision, familiar and not, but he couldn’t stop to look. He had to run. Run somewhere safe, even as the Vanishing Point was exploding around him and…

Blue.

The sensation of being somewhere else and flashes of things he knew. Central. His dad’s old house. Lisa skating at that old ice rink. Mick.

He ran to Mick the way he had for most of his life. The world appeared around him again, the presence behind him gone, and he looked around, panicked. STAR Labs. The lab was mostly the same as he recognized it from when Barry had brought him back to break into ARGUS. People were staring. There was a girl in a dark suit that… The lightning he’d seen. Purple and yellow. It was still coming off of her in little sparks as the rest of the world seemed to catch up to them. Barry was next to her with his lightning doing the same and…

He was staring at Len in something that looked like half-shock and half-dawning horror.

Somehow, Len did not find that comforting.

He snapped his head to the side when he heard Mick’s voice breathe his name, but it wasn’t until Mick had grabbed him by the biceps in a tight grip that Len realized they were both shaking.

No.

Mick was shaking.

Len was _vibrating_.

“What the hell happened?” he asked, voice barely containing the panic that wanted to come out.

“They got you out,” Mick said, mouth open to say more.

Barry cut him off. “We didn’t do anything! There wasn’t time-”

“Then, what the fuck happened?” Mick snapped.

“We incorporated the dark matter into the Oculus, but everybody else got there before we could mess with the controls,” the new girl added. “All Uncle Lenny had told me was that there needed to be dark matter in the Oculus when it blew. He’d never said…”

But Len didn’t hear anymore. Uncle Lenny. She’d called him… What the _fuck_?

“…you _knew_.” Barry’s voice. Accusing. “Nora!”

“Not everything! The time stream is linked to the Speed Force. That’s why we can run through it if we’re fast enough,” the girl – Nora – defended.

“But you _knew_.” Barry let out a breath as Len slowly focused on him, hands up at his head and clutching at his hair. “We made Captain Cold into a speedster.”

They made him into a _what_?

Mick’s fingers tangled with his for a second before Len’s hand went _through_ them.

What the fuck?

“He’s been a speedster for five seconds and he’s phasing,” Barry said, a little hysterical. “Of course he is.”

“Lenny,” Mick started, but Len’s head snapped back to look behind him. He couldn’t see anything. There _wasn’t_ anything. He could feel something, though, and it was making his hair stand on end.

“It’s coming.”

Mick tensed. “What is?”

“I don’t know.”

“Kid, what the hell is it?”

Nora shook her head. “I don’t know. No one ever told me.”

“You said you know him!”

“I do! He’s always running, though,” she said. “I see you more than I see him. He can’t stay long.”

“Because something’s _chasing him_?” Mick snapped. He looked back at Len, hands cupping the back of his neck like he was trying to hold Len still for a second. “Run. I’ll catch up.”

“Mick…”

“We’ll figure it out. Get whatever it is off your back.”

Len wanted to argue, to remind Mick that according to Nora – who the hell even _was_ she? – he was still running whenever she came from. It had to be the future. He didn’t _know_ any Noras and he was pretty sure he’d heard her call Barry Dad somewhere in between attempts to stave off a panic attack. Whatever was coming for him now, he didn’t think it ever stopped.

He didn’t think he’d ever get to stop.

“Len, _run_.”

Len ran.

The End


End file.
